Neanderthal

He walks beneath the moon, so close, the furs against his back seem inches from its cusp. Spear in his hand, he waits in silence— frost on his chin, tree bark against his ear— dreaming of aurochs, boars and mammoths, last week’s kill the muscle in his barrel chest, flint still red with bison blood, shaft reeking of skinned hides. And there it is. He thrusts his spear into the flank and neck of a stray woolly rhino. In the cold he marks its final breaths, still warm, rising from its nostrils toward the dawn. He drags its freezing carcass home with fellow hunters—to a fire-lit valley cave where starving wives and children wait. Behind them, bear skulls signify the gods.